Laia Gratiana was having a tremendous time amidst the wreathing altar smoke. She was blonde Ceres for tonight. After solemn incantations at the temple, she had ascended an enormous chariot, pretending to shake the reins. Marcia Balbilla was in there behind her, relegated to the role of torch-bearer. As Laia leaned forwards, shrieking, in go-faster mode, two men inside large curly snake costumes heaved the vehicle along. It was a great, heavy, bucketing thing. The friendly-faced snakes towed the vehicle with hidden ropes attached to the wheels.
Their task was to drive around the Aventine, stopping at every crossroads as the celebrants gave loud shouts in all directions. Tomorrow Proserpina would be returned to her mother from Pluto’s underworld with her half-eaten pomegranate, which would be a much quieter re-enactment. Tonight, Ceres was letting the crops die in winter while she hunted for her child. Each cult woman grasped a long flaming torch, with which they ran about, lamenting. They had produced classical costumes, with varying degrees of success; most managed a peplos with a folded top, pinned on the shoulders with brooches, while the daring left the sides open. Fortunately for modesty, Greek dress is voluminous so if it was properly done, many folds hid the peeking-breast look. (Men at streetbar counters were hoping otherwise.) Some women wanted such authenticity they wore their hair loose and went barefoot, as a sign of ritual mourning, though any who had done this before on the Aventine streets knew better and at least wore sandals. Most Roman women possess a pair of suitably Greek-looking toe-posts. You never know, do you, whether you may have to gallop about your neighbourhood in the name of ancient religion?
None of the women would have consulted a map beforehand; in the tangle of narrow, unnamed alleys they were liable to get separated and become fatally lost. Morellus had put vigiles out, ready to herd them back like sheepdogs.
I made one last attempt to stop the fiasco. ‘This is too risky! Can’t you just for once forego the play-acting?’
‘It is important,’ Tiberius argued. ‘Ceres brought us out of our barbarous condition, educated mankind, gave us civilisation. The point is to relearn our history. In this way, we may come to live happily and die with greater hope.’
I laughed. ‘Someone has been reading up! You’re defending your aedile.’
‘Don’t be snide, Albia. He has to manage the Games with care and reverence, reverence to the gods through acts of worship. The intention is to intercede for favour, make Ceres well disposed to Rome, in order to guarantee a good harvest for the well-being of the city.’
‘Good luck!’ I chortled.
Tiberius, scowling, marched behind the chariot; I, not scowling, strolled beside him. Zoe and Chloe skipped either side. The men in scaly snake costumes guarded the front. Laia and Marcia had a degree of protection simply because their driving platform was high up. Other members of the cult were flowing around wherever the mood took them. They had the reckless air of women who might be tipsy, though I was surprised how controlled they stayed. Tiberius deigned to grin, and said plebeian princesses could hold their drink.
On the uneven roads, the chariot was difficult to manoeuvre. It had an inbuilt axle flaw which made it lean to one side, another factor that slowed progress. The men hauling it had to skew themselves to force it in a straight line. If one of them miscalculated, sometimes their tall snake headdresses bashed together accidentally; the carnival beasts were beginning to look tattered and rakish. One had lost its forked red tongue.
We veered across the Aventine, stopping frequently. Each time, the women yelled lustily. Eventually the pageant ground to a halt at a particularly smelly junction, where a large crowd had gathered in anticipation. A man pretending to be a lame old woman accosted Ceres with a stream of filthy jokes and insults. This was part of the ritual; it represented an ancient servant, Baubo, daughter of Pan and Echo, the one person who had made Ceres smile as the depressed goddess searched.
Tiberius leant on a bar counter, signalling for drinks. ‘This will take some time …You will not believe, Albia, the stress in hiring an insult-giver. We even had a contract schedule, listing acceptable terms and how many times he is authorised to use the worst swear words. Faustus had to sit for hours, to audition actors telling him gutter jokes.’
‘Managing the rites with care and reverence,’ I reminded him gravely. ‘I suppose if he wants it to be a memorable year, he needs to make it sensationally crude? Are you auditing the ribald script? If only I’d brought my note tablet, I could tally up the “fucks” for you.’
‘Flavia Albia, behave more demurely.’
‘As you once said, I am not a nice young lady.’
‘You are when you choose. Just be natural, can’t you?’
‘Spoilsport!’ I muttered, though there was no heart in it. I felt like a chastised dog, though with no intention of rolling over. If I was a dog, it was a strong-willed, stubborn Britannia terrier. Tiberius might not know them, but they can never be mastered. They make up their own minds whom they respect; choice once made, they show bloody-minded, unflinching loyalty. Thankfully, Tiberius and I were never going to be on those terms.
He left his drink. What man does that?
He abandoned me too, and it took me a moment to see why. The crowd was even heavier at this junction, lasciviously keen on the Baubo scenario. Even the actor playing the rude crone was clinging to a chariot wheel to avoid being dragged out of the goddess’s earshot by the press of merrymakers, while Laia could almost certainly hear very little of the bawdry with those shell-like ears – from which dangled extremely expensive earrings, I noticed. She and Marcia were beginning to look concerned about the sheer number surrounding their vehicle, though I spotted that one group of men was facing outwards and pushing back onlookers – clearly the vigiles.
They were preoccupied with crowd control, so had not noticed a worse danger: attempting to climb crablike up the opposite wheel from Baubo was someone with a familiar auburn head. Tiberius must have seen him and was working his way as best he could through the lively crush of bystanders. He was never going to make it. There was no point me trying to follow, so I climbed on the bar counter inelegantly, and stood up. I banged two metal jugs together above my head and shrieked at the top of my voice to alert the Amazon bodyguards.
Chloe was nearest. The more manly of the couple, she was short, wide and fearless. Chloe hurled herself onto Andronicus. He hung onto the chariot. She clung to him. The beautifully decorated chariot of Ceres began rocking so violently that the two women in it squealed and peered over the gilded coachwork. All credit to Marcia Balbilla: she then took a firm grip on her long ritual torch and banged down the lower end on Andronicus like a laundry worker with a washing-dolly. I think she aimed for his face, which would have been perfect, but she only hit his shoulder. She did dislodge him; he fell to the ground with Chloe on top, squashing him. Marcia lost her nerve and began screaming hysterically. Laia proved her quality and slapped her out of it, belting Marcia so hard I feared she must have lost teeth. She lost her balance, and fell off the back of the chariot.
Tiberius had reached the vehicle. He gestured furiously to the two snake-dressed hauliers. I heard him shouting, ‘Go! Go!’ They took the strain. The chariot lurched forwards a few feet.
Zoe appeared, to find Chloe gripping Andronicus in a headlock with one arm, while with the other she pulled Marcia Balbilla to her feet, dewy-eyed with admiration for her exploit with the torch. Marcia stumbled tipsily and fell against Chloe. Zoe took that wrongly. Always pugnacious, she cursed and flew at Chloe, who had the sense to give Marcia a shove well out of the way. As they battled with their wooden swords, to the hysterical delight of the crowd, Andronicus squeezed free.
He made off and I tried to bawl for people to apprehend him. Useless. This was the Aventine. Any time you shout ‘Stop, thief!’, strangers instinctively step in your way to prevent you catching the culprit, while he runs off laughing.
I was pulled down off the bar by eager men who liked a woman dancing on a counter in a half-transparent
dress. They were too blissed out to cause me serious anxiety. I slipped through their grasp and wriggled my way through delighted people towards the action scene.
I saw Tiberius leap on the back of the chariot while the crowd surged forward and helped push it. This was so successful it shot ahead, rattling off at the fastest speed it had gone all night. Everyone tumbled along with it, except me. I was left, standing in a now dark and silent area, with Marcia Balbilla’s dying torch. I picked it up and twirled it until the flame burned up. Holding it aloft, I set off steadily after the others, following the shadow I had spotted: someone who tailed the convoy, unobtrusively lurking at the back so nobody noticed him. I knew it was Andronicus.
52
I lost him. He must have merged into the crowd.
By the time I caught up myself, I could see Tiberius looking back anxiously from the chariot, as if he had glimpsed our quarry or some other risk. The vehicle jerked to a sudden stop again; the Baubo actor was once more trying to earn his fee. Being re-enacted now was a traditional scene where the old crone groaned as if in the desperate pangs of childbirth (helped by the crowd chorusing along with ‘Heave!’), then lifted up her skirts to reveal her privates (was that what amused Ceres? – she must be easily tickled). Baubo then produced a child of Ceres’ own – represented tonight for extra comic effect by a swaddled piglet. The dialogue was as refined as the events. Laia Gratiana looked pained, but was encouraged to smile by raucous spectators who did not know she was too snooty.
I had more to worry about. The mob had increased here, including a boy I recognised with horror. He had climbed halfway up a column on a fire porch for a better view and was hanging there by one arm. At least it meant I noticed him. Watching wide-eyed, with all his solemn, curious intelligence, was young Postumus. He was carefully absorbing every detail, taking in every obscenity. Dear gods, my terrible brother had a waxed tablet and stylus; despite his perilous position, he was writing down the jokes. Baubo had noticed and was looking furious at the breach of copyright.
Someone else saw this too. Postumus had not spotted Andronicus, but Andronicus had fixed on him. I suddenly made out the archivist, beginning to move purposely towards my brother.
I was too far away. I tried shouting but there was too much general noise. I began to push through the crowd, assailed by smells and grabbing hands, using my torch to clear a space. There was little room to swing it but I stabbed a few feet and ribs in passing.
I saw an arm grab Postumus from below. Sick with fear, I jumped up on a large pot outside a shop, only to see it was Tiberius, with Morellus close behind him. Postumus was pulled down, furiously wriggling as he lost his note tablet. Relief surged, as I watched my brother flung hand to hand like a victim being rescued from a blazing building, in the classic vigiles manoeuvre. Somewhere at the end of that line, Postumus would receive a dressing-down. If Morellus had told his men who Postumus was, he would be escorted home, in the hope of a moneybag from our grateful parents. If Papa had been happily organising his wine cellar, they might even get one.
Andronicus had vanished again. I began pushing this way and that, searching. I heard Morellus call to some of his men, ‘Keep looking for Ginger!’ and I reached Tiberius and Morellus. Frantic gestures indicated where Andronicus must be, so we butted our way in that direction. He must have leapt among the pavement paraphernalia outside a shop, kicking over a large jar of tallow for lamps. It smelt awful and as it spilled across the road, the cobbles had become slippery. People were also throwing nuts now, purposely trying to sting others with the hard little missiles.
The chariot slumped then set off again, once more helped by the crowd. Now they took up the Baubo episode’s cry of ‘Heave!’, as if the vehicle’s painful momentum shadowed the birth process. It was a larger crowd, they pushed much harder, and as the lumbering vehicle swayed like a baby suddenly slithering out of its mother, one of the men in snake costumes at the front lost his footing on the spilt tallow. He fell, screaming in agony as a wheel ran over him. The chariot lurched spectacularly, then its axle collapsed.
Laia and Marcia were thrown out. The Amazons rushed to stand on guard over Laia, while Morellus strode across, grabbed Marcia and pulled her into the entrance to an apartment block. Closer to me, Tiberius had finally homed in on Andronicus. I scrambled after, treading on or elbowing anybody in my way. Just as Tiberius reached him, the runner’s boot slid on a scatter of nuts. He was careering so fast he could not stop himself; he sprawled full length on the cobbles. Andronicus dropped onto him, punching him repeatedly with a fast, full arm stretch. The winded runner could barely protect himself. I still had the torch, so I ran straight in, swinging it as a weapon in wide arcs.
‘Andronicus! Take on a woman, why don’t you?’
Rearing backwards, away from the naked flame, he only just kept his feet. I was extremely angry and wanted him to know it. Prettied up at Prisca’s and in my finery, I must have made a wild vision. He looked shaken.
Brandishing the torch, I really was trying to set fire to him. I would have killed him if I could. Tiberius stopped me. Still on the ground, he grabbed me by the ankle, shaking his head. I kicked free, but by then Andronicus had backed, cursed, twisted around and disappeared into a mass of people.
Tiberius struggled to his feet. ‘Leave it; we’ll get him …’ He was badly bruised and had a cut by his eye which needed to be mopped up. I checked; Andronicus had gone. I pulled Tiberius out of the crowd; we found refuge in the entrance where Morellus had shoved Marcia Balbilla, a sour stairwell to a typical multiple-occupancy block, stinking of damp, neglect, and uncollected urine in a great tank.
‘Cerberus!’
‘– With bells on his tail!’
We backed out fast. Morellus and Marcia were still there, closely engaged, and not locked in a discussion of public order control. I thought I might have to rescue her, then I realised that Marcia was doing most of the work. Morellus just leaned back against a bannister with his eyes closed, and thought it was his lucky day. Thank goodness he had had the presence of mind to put his fire-axe on one side or he would have disembowelled himself as they went at it. I left the torch, in case they needed extra light.
So much for festival abstinence.
Outside, Tiberius and I found space by a wall we could lean on. He managed to wipe some blood off himself with one arm. We settled our breathing. I found him a napkin that I kept folded small in my belt purse, which he pressed on his cut eye.
We watched the street slowly clear. The wrecked chariot was towed away by members of the vigiles. Laia Gratiana must have been rescued and taken home. Any other cult women had given up for the evening too.
Zoe and Chloe were looking after the two men in snake costumes; we saw them all go to a bar. The one who had been run over had to be supported by both women, but despite any cracked ribs he was clearly still up for whatever the night ahead might hold. Both men had the innocent seriousness of fellows who think they have picked up a couple of likely prospects. Zoe and Chloe were going to fleece them for drinks. Well, so I presumed. Who knows?
‘Intriguing foursome!’ Tiberius grinned.
‘Gruesome scope for misunderstandings! … So,’ I mused, in a thoughtful tone. ‘What about that then – Morellus and Marcia?’
The runner and I looked at one another. We could not help ourselves; we doubled up together and laughed until we were breathless all over again.
Somebody was watching us.
It was me who felt the accusing gaze. It was me who first saw him. We were supposed to be tailing him, but how long had Andronicus been observing us? He could not know the cause of the hysterical mirth that had us clutching our stomachs and laughing until we wept; he was staring at me like a man who had found his new bride in bed with her grandfather.
He had been motionless in front of a shuttered shop. Once he realised I had seen him, he tossed his head scornfully and set off away from us. I straight away ran after him, not waiting to explain to Tiberius, though he
was so hard on my heels he could have stepped on my dress hem and tripped me.
We were close to the huge Temple of Juno the Queen – the exotic Aventine Juno, brought here from Veii when Rome conquered the Etruscans, not the grand Greek version who lived on the Capitol. Andronicus ran down the side of the building, then on across the frontage of the tiny Temple of Liberty, which is supposed to be Rome’s oldest library, the place where slaves are freed. There were always a few people about there; he zigzagged through knots of them, perhaps unaware that wherever there was enough light from lanterns, that bright nut-brown head of his was a giveaway. Perhaps he knew and did not care. He enjoyed the chase, believing himself invincible. No one had caught him so far tonight. Why should he fear capture?
He was moving faster than it seemed from his relaxed lope; we were making no headway. He reached the long street that would take him to the Temples of Minerva and Diana. Now he began bounding along, springing up on goods piled outside shops and kicking them over, so our progress was hampered as the outraged owners came rushing out to resecure them. Rolling jugs and scattered buckets tumbled in our path. Unhappy shopkeepers dragged at our tunics, gesticulating in various foreign languages and pleading for justice as we broke away and rushed on.
He plunged into the backstreets. He fled down alleys clogged with years’-old rubbish, where dung paved the road. He dodged around fountains where ragged old drunks were lounging. He vanished into dark narrow entries that could be fatal dead-ends. The whores he pushed aside had collected their wits and were ready to abuse us as we ran up in his wake. Dogs he had disturbed stretched their legs and thought about biting chunks out of us. We were lucky, they were too busy peeing on cornerstones to bother. When I stumbled over litter, Tiberius grabbed my hand. When he slid a yard on slime, upright as a lake-skater in some frozen northern wilderness, I steadied him.
The Ides of April: Falco: The New Generation (Falco: The Next Generation) Page 29